I had BOTOX during clinical trials as a treatment for uncontrolled muscle contractions. It works great the first time and is much less effective each time, so you may want to hold off on the treatment until it’s badly needed. I think they currently are up to three types, A, B, C. It was not being used for minimizing facial wrinkles at the time. The neurology doctor stated that the pure toxin used to make the medicine, was in a small bottle locked away in a safe. The Neurologist expounded, that it held enough toxin to kill everybody in the world by paralyzes. Is it that toxic and how much is needed to kill everybody in the world? I was treated with type A BOTOX at the time, and would like to know if each type is equally toxic. I know that some types become less effective at different rates. The decrease in effectiveness is link to antibody production. It’s a lot like taking shots to immunize populations. Does having BOTOX injections help you ward off botulism down the road? Though I would like the answers to all the questions, the main one is size of the container and how much to kill all humans. Leave off the increased amounts needed after multiple exposures. I trust this thread is challenging enough to inspire a few experts to come to bat.
From what I’ve scribbled on the back of this here envelope, it seems reasonable. The LD_50 of botulism is 3ng/kg. So if you weigh 100 kg, it would take 300 billionths of a gram to kill you 50% of the time. Which means that 300 grams would kill (or seriously inconvience) a billion people. That’s about 10 ounces, or 5/8 pound.
Now to kill everyone on Earth – well there’s over 6 billion people on the planet. So you’d need 1800 grams. 1.8kg. Let’s pretend the density of botulism toxin is approximately that of water. 1.8 kg would then fit pretty nicely in a 2 liter bottle. So you couldn’t wipe out the entire planet with a wee little medicine bottle, but something the size of a soft drink bottle would come close to doing the trick.
Thanks for the information Finagle. Any answers to the other questions, or further elaberation on the main question?
Perhaps you might tell us first what you’re planning to do with this information.
(You do know the DHS lurks on these boards, don’t you? 
)
Any thread with the word Botulin is gonna get snapped up by a half a dozen agents of various bureaucrats. And now we all have files, or additional entries on existing files at NSA, DHS, FBI, VSSP, and others.
And we get to pay extra taxes to pay for it all.
Doesn’t that make you feel safe?
Tris
Please remember this is General Questions. I didn’t ask for the safe’s location, so National Security is fine.
Can muliple treatments with BOTOX help you fight off Botulism when your expossed? Are there differences in the toxicity of the different types?
If that’s the case, it would be a good set-up for a SF story…some terrorist exposes the world to botulin, and the only people who survive would be those who received botox treatments. Can a world of vain aging women survive?